'What a vicious shot with the chair!'

It's official: I'm regressing. I've developed a daily need to watch WWE. I'm addicted to wrestling. Cigarettes? Maybe. Alcohol? Possible. Drugs? At some point it was on the cards. Full grown men in tight little spandex pants, covered in oil, slamming in to one another. No way. I ain't getting addicted to that. Ever. Wrong! I can quote pretty much the whole Raw roster's special moves. You think I'm bluffing? Try me. John Cena = FU. CM Punk = Go to sleep or GTS for short. Paul Birchull = Kerb stone. Batista = Batista bomb (kinda obvious that one).

Do you see what I mean? First Midsomer Murders and now this? What is happening to me? Am I losing it? Did I even ever have it in the first place? Next I'll be taking a bath on Sunday nights at 7'o'clock before sitting down with a coco to watch re-runs of London's Burning starring Robson and Jerome. I can't hack it. It's taking over my life. I was at work the other day and we didn't have this book in stock. So this guy starts having a go at me and before you know it I've created this whole scenario in my head which climaxes in the guy being body slammed through the thin MDF table of the Information Point. I've even started nodding my head when the ref begins to make the three count. ONE, TWO, THREE!

Who am I kidding? I love it really and as far as addictions go it's pretty harmless. I mean it's not like I'm going to hurt myself or anyone else is it? Just a little bit of harmless fun. And besides my dad will be alright. How was I suppose to know he was going to walk in the kitchen just as I was perfecting my cross body from the top rope slash kitchen work top. It could have been worse. I'd been working on the spinebuster all afternoon. He got lucky.

Shoe Shopping

I was caught unawares by a strange supposition whilst entering a shop yesterday. Suppose I was deemed too old to be in such a place? Suppose the regular clientele were all ten years younger then me and as I entered I was welcomed with what can only be described as a local Cornish pub welcome; without the pitchforks and burning effigy of a human form of course. The irony of this supposition was that by the time I had moved into the shop I had stood in the doorway for so long, moving my lips like a mad horse whisperer, everybody was already looking at me.

Once inside the shop I did indeed discover that despite the owner being ten years older than me the average shopper was fifteen years old at most. I did not shudder with fear rather shook with paranoia. My experiences in shoe shops have not been great. Throughout my life they have left a permanent mark on me because I have a tendency to walk straight up to the women’s section. Like a magpie the shiny and colourful ladies shoes appeal to me a lot more than the bland brown or grey selection for the modern man. Hence, every time I enter a shoe shop I have to check myself and force my feet to walk in the direction of the menswear section.

Once facing the right wall it took me a matter of seconds before I had chosen my desired shoe. I might as well admit it I have a slight fetishism for shoes, particularly unusual looking ones. The shoes that had caught my eye had a pattern resembling blurred car lights, red, yellow and white, being dragged through the city at night. There was a problem. Stood between me and the shoe was a cluster of fifteen year-old boys. Now, I’m not small by any accounts, but despite knowing I could probably ‘have ‘em’ in a fight fear still washed over me. I’ve had nightmares in which a gang of ‘hoodies’ string me up and taunt me over my knowledge of literature, poetry in particular. Strange but true. This did not happen and in all honesty the young boys looked harmless enough so I reached across and plucked my shoe from the shelf.

Now I had to buy them. This proved to be another unwelcome test. Both cashiers were occupied with small skateboarders and I suddenly became aware of my age and awkwardness. Were they sniggering at me? Did they think I was a man-child who had escaped the clutches of his careers for the afternoon? I began to sweat. Finally the young girl cashier was freed and I asked her if she had the shoes in a twelve. I half expected her to laugh and ask me for some I.D, but she didn’t and returned shortly after with a big black box. I slipped one shoe on in a flash and said ‘fine’ without even walking up and down to test them out. I paid, grabbed the bag, and went to leave. However, I had to ruin it by saying “have a good day guys” which was met with a grunt and a smile as fake as my nonchalant stroll out of there.

Outside I recalled when at University I bought a pair of converse from Camden market. I wore them down the pub that very night and was greeted with a series of smiles mainly from the male of the species. My friend noticed this and, laughing, said “Gareth we didn’t say anything, but you do know what that rainbow stands for don’t you?”

Looking back I was naive. But I still liked those shoes even if their usage was limited. I don’t know what it is that reminded me of this. Perhaps the fact that the shoes I had just purchased seem similar in their eye-catching nature and the realisation that I was sure I would wear them no matter what people might think. One of the joys, I suppose, of being a twenty-something is being surer of yourself; knowing what you don’t and do like. Even if the latter means you have to shop for shoes in a teenager’s grotto.

The Tip Attendant

Why do we only ever go to the tip on the weekends? Out of only two days you’ve got free you spend one of them surrounded by rubbish, shifting through the same box for the fifth time that day because the tip attendant doesn’t believe the fact there’s no microwaves or computers tucked away in the corner. Quite why anyone would want to hide ‘electrical goods,’ as he calls them, from him I have no idea. To go to through the bother of constructing some kind of hidden Chinese draw in the folds of the cardboard just to get one over a tip attendant really seems a little far fetched.

It seems strange in these days of high tech intuition and intellect we still, for some intrinsic reason, bind ourselves to logically unsound methods of waste disposal. ‘Pull up and dump your stuff’ is pretty much as simple as it gets – not if you add the English into the equation it isn’t. Possibly why each question has to be seconded by everyone else on shift is beyond me. You know the metal goes under the big sign that says ‘metal’ yet still you have to ask. One hour later you’re finally given the go ahead. Two minutes later however you hear this: “ah, ah, ah, you can’t put that in there! Bob can he put metal in there?” If you already have suicidal tendencies stay away from the tip this weekend else you might just find yourself being mulled over by ten tip attendants, rubbing their heads, saying: “Corpses? I’m sure they go in with the electrical goods.”

Gone Fishing!

I have argued about some stupid things in my time – hair-cuts, TV programmes, and comic heroes – but never fishing. Quite how it happened is anyone’s guess. One minute I was there saying how a friend of mine goes and I’d like to go with him and then out of the blue – “You’re a murderer. You love to kill.” Now correct me if I’m wrong but a murderer kills people not animals. “But people are animals.” There was no way out. I was trapped in a meat eaters nightmare. Everywhere I turned I had blood on my hands. Even the king of comebacks “but you’re a vegetarian and you still eat fish” was met with the retaliation “your so pig headed.”

In hindsight I should not have said what I did. I replied in kind so to speak. “You’re the one whose pig headed.” Opps. A tirade, which Donald Trump would’ve been proud of, followed. I couldn’t say anything. In the end I had to leave. She stood in the doorway waiting for me to apologise, but the apology never came. She was being pig-headed and the simple use of the word pig meant that she hated me for the rest of my life – for the time being at least.

I don’t blame her. Let’s face it. A woman’s body, let alone her mind, isn’t hers for one week of the month and, as if that isn’t enough, she is a girl who particularly doesn’t like things to suffer. However, people don’t go fishing to watch fish suffer. They go because it’s sport. “Sport?! That’s worse!” Wrong again. I decided to cut my loses and run.

The day after an argument is always filled with ‘if only I said this’ or ‘what if.’ But this argument was about fish and I’ll be damned if I go over it in my head more than is necessary. I doubt very much fish argue about humans.

It’s unusual how relationships are like some sports. The excitement of football, the patience of cricket, sometimes even the tactical nuance of American Football is required. Fishing on the other hand is a rather saddening comparison. Catching something only to let it go. Watching it swim off into the big blue ocean never to be seen again. Normally it’s the man that’s the fisherman, coaxing the fish in and deciding or not if he wants to keep it, tossing it back in if it’s not to his liking.

But this time it’s the other way round. I’m the fish and despite the fact my lip is well and truly hooked she could get up at any moment and row back in to shore. Leaving me to flap around on the wooden slats of the boat until I run out of air. Oh, the world can be such a cruel place. Especially if you’re a fish.